Driving Me Crazy

 You really have a driver’s license?” My driver training teacher asked me in 1958. “If you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

OK, I get nervous when someone is evaluating my every move behind the wheel.

I’ll bet he got nervous too: He had a lever by his side that slammed on the brakes whenever a student terrified him by veering off the road. I’ll bet he had a stiff drink at the end of the school day.

Decades later, I got nervous too when I helped a visiting 20-year-old learn to drive this past summer. I wonder if I now have P.T.S.D.

I take a lot of driving for granted. I think: Of course you can easily keep the car on course between the white line and the edge of the highway. Of course you start accelerating before you begin climbing a hill. Of course you start your turn before you are in the middle of the intersection. I guess not. Don’t kids learn all that when driving bumper cars?

We started on the almost empty parking lot at the World of Sports in South Boston. It was even more empty once we got rolling. I wonder if they sensed danger and moved their cars.

Well, I was getting bored going back and forth in a parking lot but not my student. He seemed reluctant to get on U.s. 58.

I should have known better. I wanted him to go slow on the four-lane highway, but I started to wail when he went full blast.

“It says 55 mph,” he said. “You don’t have to do that,” I exclaimed, probably too loudly. “Let them pass you.”

I tried to remember everything to tell him. When I taught him to ride a bike, I forgot to tell him about the brakes, and he crashed into a tree.

I should have known better than to try to teach someone to drive all in one day. The next day we stuck to the path from the road to our house,

But I forgot that turning around is no easy task. It took about five or six turns before getting back on the driveway. Without even hitting a tree! I recommended that he take a driver training class when he gets home.

Why was I so worried about him? My own driver’s license expires soon, and I was terrified I would fail the vision test. My vision isn’t what it was at 20.

I kept putting it off until my eyes felt right. Finally, I went to the DMV and was greeted by a friendly clerk, with no wait.

WhenI looked into the machine, she said, “Can you read the first line?” I wanted to say “What line?” But slowly the letters came into view. “A, K, G, R….” I passed! Yay!

So I won’t need the 20-year-old to drive me around.

Now, if I ever stop driving, it will be my decision, not the government’s.